


Sunflower

by Sholio



Category: The Defenders (Marvel TV)
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Gen, Healing, Hurt/Comfort, Iron Fist Exchange, Puppy Piles, Team Bonding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-01
Updated: 2019-04-01
Packaged: 2019-12-07 09:20:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18232946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sholio/pseuds/Sholio
Summary: Danny collapses after healing Luke, and his teammates have to take care of him. That's it, that's the fic.





	Sunflower

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Punknatch](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Punknatch/gifts).



> For Punknatch in the Iron Fist fanworks exchange. I hope you enjoy it! <3

Luke didn't remember much of it, afterwards. The explosion hadn't hurt him, and he'd gotten all the workers out before the warehouse blew -- but the problem was afterwards, inhaling the smoke and fumes from burning chemicals as he struggled to extricate himself from the rubble. Dizziness washed over him and he was struggling desperately to breathe, and he had the distinct memory of thinking very clearly _Shit, I think I'm in trouble_ \-- and then things were just ... dark.

And then there was light.

It was soft and warm and golden, and it seemed to spill into every corner of the world. There was pain, but it didn't even seem to matter; the gentle golden glow soothed it away, like basking in a sunbeam.

Getting back to consciousness was a fight, but it was the kind of battle he'd been fighting all his life. He managed to peel open eyelids that seemed to weight a thousand pounds, and was distantly surprised to find that the world was dark, or at least dim, lit only by the flickering, ruddy glow of the warehouse fire. And there was Danny, his face smudged with soot, grinning down at him.

Then Danny's eyes rolled back in his head and he folded up and keeled over on top of Luke.

Luke sucked in a startled breath and started coughing, just as a female voice from somewhere over his head said impatiently, "Really?" And that made him realize that the other set of small, alarmingly strong hands holding his shoulders were Jessica's.

"Really?" Jessica said. "Both of you?" Her voice sounded almost as raspy as Luke's lungs felt. He managed to tilt his head back enough to see her, hair a tousled mess and her jacket half burned off on the shoulder. "C'mon," she said, giving him a nudge and half-helping, half-pushing him to sit up. "I got you out, he healed you with his glowy magic hands, now can you walk or do I need to carry you too? Either way, we gotta get out of here before the cops show up."

Luke managed to take a slow breath without coughing, and managed to say, "I got it." Looking down at Danny's tousled head of soot-darkened curls, he got out, "Is he okay?"

"I don't know!" Jessica said, exasperated. "All I know is you weren't breathing and he did the whole ... thing ... I know Colleen said he can do that, but it's the first time I've seen it and it's a hell of a thing to see." She got one arm around Luke, her other arm around Danny, and stood up effortlessly with both of them. "Sure you don't need to be carried?"

"I can walk." He managed to get it out without coughing. Jessica, rather than sweeping Danny over her shoulder as Luke had half expected, picked him up in a bridal carry instead, her gentleness belying the sarcastic drawl of her comments. 

"Where's Matt?" Luke asked as they set out on a depressingly slow journey into the shadows. Sirens were now audible in the distance.

"He's chasing our saboteurs. I expect they'll be tied up at the police station shortly, probably with some broken bones, because he was a little bit ... er ... _upset_ when he headed out. 'course, Glowy Fist Boy and I were a little busy at that point, trying to dig your clumsy ass out of a pile of fallen girders." She said it in a tone that made it clear she found him a total pain in the ass, but didn't meet his eyes she said it.

"I'm bulletproof," Luke pointed out, trying not to cough. "A building falling on me isn't going to kill me."

"Oh, right. Next time we'll just leave you then."

And that made Luke remember what she'd said, that he wasn't breathing when they'd dragged him out. "Sorry," he said. "Thanks. Really."

Jessica made a scoffing noise that was probably her version of "You're welcome." Luke's worried gaze swept over her -- she looked basically okay, just kind of scuffed up -- and went back to Danny, even pastier than usual and barely breathing in Jessica's arms.

"Is the, uh, y'know, the healing thing bad for him?" he asked as a row of warehouses blocked their view of the fire and reassuring inky shadows hid them, at last, from sight.

"How should I know?" Jessica demanded. "I don't even want to be messed up in this kind of thing!"

They walked in silence for a few minutes, putting more distance between them and the sirens. This made Luke realize that he wasn't sure where they were going. Matt's place was closer than Harlem, but that wasn't saying a whole lot, and the last Luke knew, Jessica had been sleeping in her office.

Then Jessica murmured, "Aha," and before Luke knew what was happening, she transferred Danny's limp body into his arms and took off jogging. She was headed for a chain-link fence and, behind it, an enormous flatbed tow truck, thirty years old if it was a day. She vaulted the fence in a running leap, which was followed by some rattling sounds from the truck doors.

"Are you stealing a truck?" Luke asked, drifting close to the fence. Danny was a limp weight in his arms, his head tilted against Luke's collarbone and his curls tickling Luke's chin. He was very still, and his breathing was so faint that Luke could barely feel the rise and fall of his chest. Luke found his grip tightening automatically, holding the self-sacrificing idiot a little closer.

"Ask a stupid question," Jessica's voice came from the shadows around the truck. "You're such a Gryffindor. Make yourself useful and open that gate."

Luke sighed and, with only a slight qualm, freed a hand from Danny to grip the padlocked chain around the gate and wrench it off. They did need that truck. "We're bringing it back," he said.

"Of _course,_ Grandma." Anything else sarcastic that she might have said was lost in the roar of the truck's engine. Luke pulled the gate open and then came around to the other side of the truck. Jessica leaned over to open the door from the inside, having to shift her way halfway across the truck's wide bench seat to do it. She took Danny carefully when Luke handed him up and then climbed up after him.

The truck's roaring engine settled to a steady deep rumble. Jessica slid back behind the wheel, with Danny limply draped between them. She studied the controls and then threw it in gear. Luke threw an arm around Danny to stop him from falling off the seat, and Danny wilted limply onto him.

He was chilly to the touch. Luke scrounged around in the cab of the truck and found a beat-up old work jacket to drape around him.

Meanwhile Jessica roared up the streets with a total disregard for a) traffic laws, or b) the fact that her truck was bigger than 90% of the light nighttime traffic.

"This is subtle," Luke said. "Especially in Manhattan."

"Shut up."

 

***

 

They were saved from having to break into Matt's apartment by the fact that Matt had just gotten back, swinging onto the fire escape as they pulled up in the tow truck underneath the window. By the time they got upstairs he was opening the door for them, his Daredevil mask shoved back on his mussed hair.

"His heartbeat doesn't sound good," he said as Luke laid Danny out on the couch. "Or your breathing."

"I'm okay," Luke said. "You got blankets and that kind of thing?"

"I'll just be getting a drink," Jessica remarked, wandering toward the kitchen.

"After you return the stolen truck?" Luke suggested. "Or at least park it somewhere that's not double-parked in front of Matt's building?"

"Oh my God, _fine,_ next time I'm leaving you in the burning building." Jessica grabbed a bottle of wine from Matt's kitchen and stomped out.

By the time she got back (in much too short a time to have taken the tow truck back, even if she'd caught an Uber; Luke decided not to ask what she'd done with it) he and Matt had Danny wrapped up in blankets, and Matt had managed to talk Luke into changing into something that hadn't been recently set on fire.

"You know, I envy that Superman dude sometimes," Luke said through the half-open door of the bathroom, changing into a pair of Matt's sweat pants (which just fit him, though they were a little short) and a Luke Cage (TM) brand hoodie, which was irritating but also fit him, so ... what the hell. "He just has these bulletproof, flameproof clothes. Useful, huh?"

"He's fictional," Matt remarked. He was sitting on the floor next to Danny, where Luke got the feeling that he was acting as a sort of human vital-signs monitor. "Anyway, all his clothes came from Krypton -- the bulletproof ones, anyway. He burned up any number of suits as Clark Kent."

"Nerds," Jessica remarked. She slam-dunked the wine bottle into the trash and went to rummage through Matt's cabinets.

"Dude," Luke said, coming out of the bathroom. "You read comics?"

"Used to," Matt said, and oh _right,_ shit, the blind thing. Luke was scrambling for an apology when Matt added, "Anyway, Foggy's into it. Sees all the movies and keeps me up to date with the comics, whether I want him to or not."

Luke laughed softly and sat down beside the couch. He laid a hand on Danny's leg -- like it made a difference if Danny knew they were there or not, but Luke wanted him to know it anyway. "Just Superman, or the whole works?"

"What, Foggy? Oh, all of it." Matt grinned, that unselfconscious little-kid grin. Luke had gotten to know him well enough by now to know that most people didn't see that grin, just like most people didn't see him as he was now, without the dark glasses. "Superman, Batman, the Flash, all the superheroes."

There were times when Luke was in the kind of mood to point out that some people said that's what _they_ were. But this wasn't that kind of evening, not with his lungs feeling wet and heavy like a couple sacks of cement; not with Danny limp and unmoving on the couch, and Jessica favoring her arm beneath her burned sleeve, and Matt sitting in that careful way that meant he'd probably broken or cracked something but didn't want anyone to notice.

"Hey, you want to change?" Matt asked Jessica when she came over to the couch with a half-empty bottle of Matt's bourbon. "You can wear some of my stuff."

"I'm good like this."

"It's just, I can smell you all over the apartment."

"Wow," Jessica said after taking a long pull from the bottle. "Way to flatter a girl's ego."

"Smoke," Matt said. "And chemicals."

Jessica huffed out a sound that was something like a laugh, vanished off to the bathroom, and came back in one of Matt's hoodies and a pair of his sweatpants. "Happy now?"

"Very," Matt said.

Jessica joined them on the floor. "So what about Glowy Ninja Boy, anyway?" She poked Danny's shoulder, but gently. "Is he gonna wake up eventually, or ... should we take him to a hospital, or something?"

"I don't think a hospital can help him, but ..." Matt paused. "Touching him might."

Jessica jerked her hand back as if she felt personally called out. Luke's own hand twitched on Danny's leg. He wasn't sure why he'd felt like putting it there, just that it had seemed right.

"Why?" he asked.

"I don't know," Matt said. "Something he said to me once. Skin contact helps him recharge his chi when he's drained. That and food, but we can't really get him to eat when he's unconscious."

Jessica cleared her throat. "Look, he's a nice kid -- don't tell him I said that -- but I draw the line at cuddling him back to health."

Matt choked on a laugh, but then sobered. "I don't think it has to be like that. Just ... being close to him, I think is enough."

 

***

 

They ordered pizza and sat in a circle on the floor by the couch, sharing slices of New York's best pie and taking turns resting a hand on Danny's blanket-covered shoulder or ankle.

"So this is ... helping," Jessica said, frowning down at Danny's pale, still face with her hand on his arm. 

"His color looks a little better," Luke said. "I mean, comparatively. It's a different shade of pasty than it was earlier, I think."

As if Danny sensed that he was was being talked about, he twitched and stirred. Luke shook his leg gently. "Hey there, man. You in there?"

Danny jerked awake with a faint groan, tried to sit up, and wilted limply back down on the couch.

"Whoa there, ninja boy," Jessica told him. "Don't make us hold you down."

"Food ... chi," Danny said faintly.

When no one did anything, Jessica rolled her eyes and leaned forward and shoved a slice of pizza into Danny's hand.

He wolfed down half a pizza, barely pausing for air, and then collapsed in a heap in the blankets again. Jessica prodded at him as if checking to see if he was dead. Danny swatted at her hand feebly and then appeared to fall asleep -- more like natural sleep this time than the deathly stillness earlier. His color was much healthier now, less fish-belly pale and more like his normal shade of pale.

Matt got up with a soft grunt of pain and began to collect the pizza boxes. "So ... are you guys spending the night, or ...?"

"Sleepovers? Really?" Jessica said. "Are we going to braid each other's hair?" Luke gave her a pointed look and raised his eyebrows. "Okay, fine. Not your hair."

"You can braid his hair," Luke said, patting Danny's shoulder.

"Gosh! Really?"

"No."

"Thank God."

 

***

 

Luke didn't honestly expect Jessica to stick around, but she took an armload of blankets when Matt dug them out of the closet.

"There's only one bed," Matt said. "And Danny's on the couch, so ... I don't know. Figure it out. There's plenty of blankets. Help yourself to anything from the kitchen." With that, he brushed a hand across Danny's shoulder and then wobbled off to bed, giving a distinct impression that he'd just run out of energy himself and was probably hurt worse than he was letting on.

Luke found his legs a little shaky when he got up, too. His lungs still ached when he breathed too deeply. He didn't want to think about how tonight would've gone without Danny and Jessica.

Jessica rustled around making herself a nest beside the couch. "So do you think we're still supposed to be laying on hands, or ..."

Luke laughed softly. "Don't ask me. All this is way above my pay grade. Uh ... thanks again, by the way. For earlier. I mean it. I really owe you two."

After a moment, Jessica said gruffly, "All in a day's work, Cage."

She rolled over, clearly ending the conversation. Luke turned out the lights and, under the plausible deniability of darkness, made himself a nest on the floor within touching distance of both Danny and (not that she'd appreciate it or that he planned to do it) Jessica. And then exhaustion claimed him, and that was the last thing he knew until suddenly a warm, heavy weight landed on him and he woke to some kind of scuffle and Jessica saying, "What the hell, Rand, _honestly."_

Luke roused himself enough to discover that Danny had somehow gotten down off the couch and wormed his way between them and was now cuddled up with them, turning what had been two semi-discrete blanket lumps into one big, cozy puppy pile.

"Danny," Luke said.

"I didn't sign up for this," Jessica declared from somewhere underneath the other half of Danny.

"Sorry," Danny mumbled, and then fell asleep again. On them.

Either of them was easily strong enough to just put him back on the couch. But Luke met Jessica's half-annoyed, half-amused gaze across Danny's shoulder, and she half-smiled, rolled her eyes and lay back down.

"If you drool on me, kick me, or otherwise annoy me in the night, ninja boy," her voice said from the other side of Danny, "I'm going to punch you into next week."

Danny made a soft, sleepy sound and Jessica made a choking noise, by which Luke guessed that Danny had responded to this by snuggling up closer to her.

"Just think what Matt is missing out on," Jessica said, muffled, "over there with his _bed_ and all."

Luke laughed softly, and threw an arm over Danny, with Danny's curly hair tickling his face and a deep, warm sense that things were going to be okay. "Good night."


End file.
